Community Demands Justice in Countdown To Conviction

On Saturday, a few hundred concerned citizens and a broad coalition of activists from around the Cincinnati area gathered at Inwood Park to demand justice for Sam DuBose. Organized by Black Lives Matter: Cincinnati, the rally and subsequent march and protest down Vine Street to the Hamilton County Courthouse was part of the Countdown to Conviction series of actions to hold University of Cincinnati Officer Ray Tensing accountable for the murder of Mr. DuBose on July 19, 2015 during an unnecessary off-campus traffic stop.

The Sam DuBose case made national headlines for its graphic violence caught on the officer's body camera and for the fact that Officer Tensing lied about the events that led up to the shooting, including a false claim that Mr. DuBose dragged the officer with his vehicle. On July 29, 2015, the county prosecutor, Joe Deters, in a strongly worded statement, called Officer Tensing's actions "asinine" and indicted him for murder and voluntary manslaughter. This simple act of holding a police officer accountable for their actions to the public was widely applauded by the community, and it was stunning to many for its rarity. Police killed over 1200 civilians in 2015, but only seven officers were charged in those deaths and to date, there have been ZERO convictions in any of the cases.

Mr. DuBose, a 43 year old black man driving home to watch movies with his 9 year old son, was stopped by Officer Tensing because he didn't have a front license plate on his vehicle. The overall interaction between the two men was less than two minutes with Mr. DuBose providing "work arounds" to the officer such as suggesting he follow Mr. DuBose a few blocks home where he had the paperwork Officer Tensing requested. Within a few seconds of that suggestion, Officer Tensing shot Mr. DuBose in the back of his head, causing Mr. DuBose's foot to hit the accelerator and the car to travel several hundred feet before slamming into a telephone pole and coming to rest. In a year before that had seen major civil unrest in multiple cities because of extra-judicial killings by police officers, this death had the entire community on edge. Cincinnati had experienced riots in 2001, after a police officer shot and killed an unarmed teenager, Timothy Thomas, in Over-The-Rhine, and in the aftermath of the civic upset, a Collaborative Agreement had been formed by the city's government, its police department, the ACLU, and Cincinnati Black United Front and many around the country believed that the city had reached a new era of policing.

That was not to be.

At Saturday's rally, participants heard from many within the community, but none were more moving that Audrey DuBose, Sam's mother, and Robin Scott, the mother of Melvin Murray Jr., whose death in 2015 was also at the hands of the police department. Ms. DuBose, in a passionate speech, claimed that there would be "No more bodies, if I can help it. I'm out here for the long haul. I'm going to be everywhere. When they look up, I'll be there because my child was murdered by Cincinnati police." Ms. Scott reminded the crowd of the corruption she had discovered within the department, as she worked to discover how her son had died. Later in front of the courthouse, these two women were joined by the mother of Henry Green V, who had driven down from Columbus to tell the story of her own son's death at the hands of police just a few months earlier, and in a poignant moment toward the end of the event, all embraced. The pain felt by the crowd was palpable.

As the final stage of the Countdown to Conviction series of events, Black Lives Matter: Cincinnati will be standing in solidarity at the courthouse to make certain Officer Tensing receives a guilty verdict. His trial begins on October 25th, and concerned citizens will meet outside the courthouse at 9am that day and will stay until the verdict is read. The goal of the action is to remind everyone involved that the community has not forgotten Mr. DuBose and that justice will only be served if Officer Tensing is convicted of murder.

Watch a video of Audrey DuBose address the crowd gathered for this event.

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(Article by Lessa Leigh)